Asphalt Dreams
by Sarah the Welsh One
Summary: Buffy's dead. Xander's messing with magic. Results could be tragic.


Asphalt Dreams  
  
I'm walking along this corridor, full of students, teacher's assistants, prodigies and geniuses and none of them are looking at me. Amazing, really. Xander Harris, blendin' in with the students. I'm cool. I'm on the scene. No diggity, no doubt.  
  
I knock hard on Willow and Tara's door. They're a long time answering the door. Wonder what they were doing in there. Mmm. Visual place. Finally, Willow opens the door, looking not even remotely flustered. Oh well. The image is still there. "Xander!" she exclaims. Aww, Will. She's always pleased to see me. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"Giles said you wanted some help with something. Moving stuff or something. Figured you'd need a big strong man." I flex one not especially muscular arm and Willow giggles. Hmm. Ego deflates. "And in the absence of one, I thought I'd call round. So what are we doing? Furniture reshuffle? Frantic decorating?" I step inside and take in the chaos. "Or maybe just books. What happened? Did you stage a hold up in a library? Because they let you take the books, or so is my understanding."  
  
Tara looks up at me from her position - sitting on the floor. Reading a book. Surrounded by books. "Hey, Xander," she says politely. She's been a Scooby so long, and yet I still get the impression she wants to call me sir. "How are you?"  
  
"Fine, thanks. So what's this big strong man needed for, exactly?" I survey the room with distaste. "I don't know if you've heard, but reading isn't exactly my forte. I mean, I can, but it's not a preferred sport in the Harris household."  
  
Willow picks up a cardboard box full of books and heaves it into my arms. "Could you take these over to Giles'? Tara and I are looking for a particular spell. As well as cataloguing all our tomes so that we know where to find stuff next time. This room is a disaster area." She smiles at me, stepping over books to sit beside Tara.  
  
"Sure. It's not like I have anything else to do." I take a step back with the box, intending to turn so that I can get out without injuring myself. "And there are many of these boxes -"  
  
There's a scream of pain (it doesn't emit from me, I should add), something moves beneath my feet (books, oh lord, the books are screaming) and I fall backwards, promptly sending all the books in the box flying . "Oh my God," I moan from my now horizontal position. "I think I'm dead."  
  
"Xander!" Willow rushes to my side. "Are you all right?"  
  
"What did I stand on?"  
  
Tara appears over me, a bundle of black and white fur in her hands. "Miss Kitty," she says.  
  
"She's okay. You just startled her."  
  
"*I* startled *her*. Of course. My pain pales into insignificance besides that of... Miss Kitty." I get to my feet slowly and achingly. "Oh, the books. Sorry, Will."  
  
"It doesn't matter. Look." She picks up one of the books and shows me the spine. "Stickers. So we know which ones are for Giles, just in case of such an.... eventuality."  
  
"Ahh. Always prepared, that's... that's good." I kneel down and start repacking the books into the box. One is open upside down near my feet and I sit back on my haunches and rest it on my lap. "So... books are cool," I say carefully, looking at it. "And this.... this is Wicca stuff? 'Ablai deraen daemonai-"  
  
"Oooch!" Willow quickly takes the book from me and snaps it shut. "Remember Molloch? Some books should not be read aloud."  
  
"Moll -? There's a demon in there?! Will, are you crazy?" I look at the books in her hand with some mixture of disgust and fear. "Does it not occur to you that it's dangerous stuff you gals are mixing with. I mean, I know you think you can handle it, but -"  
  
"Xander. I'm not saying there's a demon in the book. It's just Tara and I haven't checked all these books out yet, and we're not entirely sure what's in them."  
  
"It's not that we don't trust you," Tara pipes up.  
  
"It's okay. I know." I shrug and pick up the box again, going towards the dooor. Suddenly I  
  
really want out of this cosy, Wicca, Tara-Willow world that I have no part in. (How dare you come in and disturb this, with your stupid clumsiness and your standing on their cat. Get out, get out, get out.) I should have known that. "Stupid Xander. Don't touch anything: something will always go wrong. Shoulda remembered."  
  
"Xander - I didn't mean-"  
  
Oh, now Willow's dismayed. What are you going to do next, Xander? Slap Tara? "No, really, it's okay." Awkward silence. "I'll. um. I'll see ya later. Bye." I heave the box into a more comfortable position and dart out into the corridor. Glad to be out. Nice to be out. Claustrophobia ends. I turn and head towards Giles.  
  
-  
  
Xander,  
  
I had hoped you would be here sooner. Unfortunately, important business at the shop calls. If you could take the books back to your apartment, I shall collect them this evening.  
  
Giles  
  
"Damn Brits," I mutter, wadding up the note and dropping it in his mailbox on my way back past. Not even any sign of Dawn. His newest housemate. Anyway, typical English logic - is it really wise to announce to the whole of Sunnydale that you're out? Cause that's what writing it on a note stuck on your front door will say to 'em, you know. What important business is he going to have at this time of night? It's not exactly late, but it's dark. Accounts, maybe. Anya loves his accounts.  
  
I lug the box past the Bronze and past the cemetery, Sunnydale's vampire hot spots, without event. It figures. Even vamps don't want to drain a loser like me. Hey, no sweat. If those are the terms of being a loser, then just call me Mr Loser.. After that, my luck appears to run out. As I pass the old Summers' place, a familiar blond steps out of the shadows. And unfortunately, not the familiar blonde I would definitely prefer to see.  
  
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Xan Man." Shrouded in cigarette smoke and alcoholic fumes, Spike leers at me. I haven't seen him for the year since Buffy died. I was beginning to forget how much I despise him, but… ahh, there it is. That familiar hatred of Spike, right where it belongs.  
  
"What are you doing here, Spike? Other than getting drunk with a few old knockback memories?" I'm so not scared of him with brainwashy chip. Assuming he still has the brainwashy chip. Yeah, he'll have it. (Who are you trying to persuade?) Oh, come on. Even Spike wouldn't turn down a Xander meal at this distance. No, for once I'm superior. It's a nice feeling. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. "Could you take a step back? What with the cigarette and the fumes you're hanging with, I think I can be forgiven for my concern over fire safety."  
  
"Screw you," Spike slurs.  
  
"Nice comeback. Anything in particular you wanted? Or did you just want to supply me with so much alcohol laced oxygen I'll never have to drink again?"  
  
"Books," he says with unexpected clarity, and snatches one up out of the box. He flips it open, and Willow's words echo in my head. ("Some books should not be read aloud.") I make a feeble attempt to swipe it back, but it's futile. He neatly sidesteps me and takes in the words with greedy interest.  
  
"Well, well. What could our very own dandy be doing with this kind of power?" Spike grins patronisingly at me. "Know what this is, mate? Allow me to translate-"  
  
"Don't read that out loud!"  
  
He stares at me with interest. "Can it be that Xander Harris actually knows ancient Japanese?"  
  
"I'm just saying," I say desperately. "You shouldn't read them out loud. They're… vampire curses."  
  
He continues to stare for a second, then laughs, loudly and drunkenly. "So you can't read it. Not really a surprise, that." He draws deep on his cigarette and gestures to the words with it as he translates them. "As they have lain down, so they shall rise again. The earth shall spew forth blood and fire, and the black, the dark, the night gods shall walk the earth." He shuts the book and tucks it under his arm. "You get the picture. Not pretty. Dangerous in the wrong hands." He looks down at his own pasty wonders and cackles loudly. "These look wrong enough to me. Auf wiedersehn, Harris. See you in hell!" He staggers off into the night before I can grab the book back.  
  
The earth shall spew forth blood and fire. Oh, God.  
  
-  
  
I wake up on Giles' couch, but Giles isn't around, and nor is anyone else. And I don't recollect being at Giles. Then I realize Dawn is sitting on the arm of the couch, poking me in the shoulder.  
  
She smiles happily, the happiest I've seen her in a year, as I open my eyes. "Buffy said something big was going down. She said you have to go to the school library and meet them there."  
  
"It's you." I rub at my eyes and wonder what caused me to say something so obvious. "Buffy said that?"  
  
"She said you have to meet her there soon. It's important."  
  
"But – Dawn - the school library burned down when- and Buffy's d-"  
  
"I know all that." She looks tired, I think. Happy, perhaps, but ancient, and so very tired. "Stop asking me questions now. She said you would have questions." Her expression turns to anger and – stupidly – I almost recoil from her glaring eyes. Her accusing eyes. "She hasn't got forever. You have to go – now. Time is running out."  
  
-  
  
I get to the school and it's there. It's really there, just like it was every day of high school. I'm half expecting Snyder to pop up and ask me why I'm late. People are sitting around on the grass. People I recognize. Larry – Harmony – Jonathan – Ms Calendar. Which is patently ridiculous cause she's dead. Some of them call to me. "Xander!" "Hey, man!" "Where's the fire?" I want to stop and talk to them, cause, you know, these are the old days, and I never see some of these people again. But Buffy's more important. I run up the steps, smile at Ms Calendar as I rush past her, and weave through the halls to the library. It's still there. Amazing.  
  
"Buffy!"  
  
"Hey, Xander." She smiles warmly at me. Exactly the same. Really, crazily identical. Bonkers.  
  
Her expression, though smiley, is troubled. "Sit down. I have to tell you something."  
  
I sit opposite her at the table. There's a chessboard laid out. Someone is halfway through a game. She gestures to the board. "Your move."  
  
"Mine?" But this isn't my game. "Um. I'll pass."  
  
She shrugs and reaches across, moving one of the pieces towards her. "She's coming," she says mournfully. "You have to meet her. Slayer."  
  
"The new one's Brazilian," I say awkwardly. "She lives in Rio. I hear they have a lot of trouble with vamps and stuff down there. There's another hellmouth there."  
  
She shows no sign of having heard, simply continuing to move the chess pieces around the board. "Check. You have to read the book."  
  
"But Willow told me not to."  
  
"Sometimes Willow is wrong." She leans sideways, her hand reaching down to the floor. It emerges with a book. She puts it on the table and pushes it towards me. "You have to find it and read it."  
  
"Why? What'll happen?"  
  
"The weight of the world," Buffy says flatly, and begins moving the pieces around again. "Open it."  
  
Cautiously, I open it up. "Ablai deraen daemonai- nope." I snap the book shut. "This is the one  
  
Willow told me not to read."  
  
"Spike will win," Buffy says sadly. Suddenly she leans forward and whispers to me conspiratorially, "Is this hell?"  
  
"I don't think so." I look around. "It looks like the library at high school. But it can't be, because it burned down."  
  
"I remember." She gazes down at herself. "But I, I died. And I'm here."  
  
"Yeah." I frown at the book again. "Is this the one Spike took?"  
  
"No. His is more English." She studies me for a moment. "Did Dawnie tell you time is running out?"  
  
"Yeah. But she didn't say what for. What was she talking about?"  
  
"Death." Willow appears at the other edge of the table and sits at it. "Look at us. We're the Holy Trinity. The three Musketeers."  
  
"Life is short," Buffy says sagely.  
  
"Maybe you are. But what about Giles? And what about me?" Cordelia appears at the fourth edge. Buffy continues to play chess. Willow is looking at me reproachfully.  
  
"You read the book," she says disappointedly.  
  
"I didn't. I wouldn't read it. Buffy. Tell her!"  
  
"He didn't read it," Buffy says vaguely. "I told him to. But he won't."  
  
"I knew an Angel once," Cordelia says excitedly. "I'll read the book. What's it about?"  
  
"Slayers," Buffy says wearily.  
  
"Read it in your living room," Giles calls from behind the librarian's desk. He wasn't there before.  
  
"Yes, yes, yes. Can we start now?" Cordelia says impatiently.  
  
Buffy moves the chessboard and she and Cordelia begin a new game. I lean across to Willow.  
  
"What's going on?"  
  
"I don't know. Strange things." She looks at me. "You'd better ask Giles."  
  
I turn. "He's gone."  
  
"I can't help you," she says sadly, standing up. "Oz and I are going to a party."  
  
"Oz? What happened to Tara?"  
  
She frowns. "Who?"  
  
"Hey, Jimmy."  
  
I look up and Faith is standing behind Buffy, one hand on her shoulder, the other grasping the hand of a small boy. He reminds me of someone. Willow doesn't look surprised, but she says to me, "It's baby Xander."  
  
She's right. The kid looks like a four year old me. Faith laughs at my expression. "What? You thought it wouldn't happen sooner or later, with my life of chastity?"  
  
-  
  
I wake up with a start in my own bed. "Thank heavens," Giles says rather wearily, standing over my bed. "I thought you were never going to wake up."  
  
I sit up, disorientated. "Where am I?"  
  
"In your basement, of course. In your bed, fully clothed. I don't think I need to point out the  
  
lack of hygiene in that," Giles says. His expression changes to one of alarm. "Xander? Are you all right?"  
  
"I. Yeah," I say, finally. "I'm fine. Um…" How to explain the missing book? And the fact that I want to keep one of them, cause Dream-Buffy said I had to read it? "Er… books."  
  
"Quite. Can I have them?" He stands up and brushes the dust off his trousers. "I want to get  
  
back to the shop. I've left Anya there on her own, and though I'm sure she is more than capable…"  
  
"Yeah," I say. "I mean, yeah, you didn't get them?"  
  
"Get them?" He frowns. "Did you not get my note?"  
  
"Y-no." My heart is hammering. Harris, as liars go, you're the worst ever. "I left them on your doorstep. You didn't get them?"  
  
"I left a note." Giles looks horrified at the implications of what I'm saying and I feel really bad for lying. But needs must. If I can read the book, and get the other from Spike, then maybe I can lie, say I found them. "You didn't get them?"  
  
"No, I didn't. This is terrible. Xander, how could you be so careless?" He takes his glasses off and begins cleaning them. Never a good sign. "I'm disappointed in you, I must admit. Anyone could have those books now. I specifically said in my note –"  
  
"I didn't get a note," I say desperately.  
  
"No. Well. I suppose someone must have taken it, and then waited until you left the books on the doorstep," Giles says. "Perhaps we should have a meeting later to discuss how to find them. Possibly Willow knows a spell."  
  
"Yeah," I say. Arrgghherrr. Xander, you are a horrible person. "I'll, um, keep my eye out."  
  
"Well, don't endanger yourself." He heads towards the door. "Well. Nothing to do now, I suppose."  
  
"No. Um – see ya, then."  
  
"Yes. See you later, Xander."  
  
Dreams. As Giles would say: Oh, Lord.  
  
-  
  
"An?"  
  
"What have you done with my pen?"  
  
"Sorry?" I've walked into some alternate universe where nobody can hear me speak and Anya talks about pens twenty-four-seven. I believe now would be a fitting time to look for a gun. "An, can you --"  
  
"You should be sorry," Anya continues, and I'm really beginning to think that she's going to be oblivious to everything until I admit to stealing her pen. Which I haven't. "I can't write sums with apologies, Xander. What have you done with it?"  
  
"It's behind your ear," I say patiently.  
  
"Oh," she says petulantly, like it's my fault, and puts it in her pocket. "Don't forget to go to work today."  
  
"It's my day off."  
  
"Okay, well, don't raise the dead."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"You're a man, and men get funny ideas," she says simply.  
  
"Okay. I promise not to raise the dead," I tell her. "An, do we have any of those pseudo-psychology books about dreams? You know, translation and stuff? What dreams mean, or --"  
  
"No," she says, pouting into the mirror and applying her lipstick. "I can ask Giles if you want."  
  
"No, no," I say hastily. "Don't bother. I can maybe ask Willow."  
  
Anya frowns and turns around, hands on hips, in classic annoyed-woman pose. "I don't like the way you spend all your time with Willow."  
  
"What are you talking about? I spend hardly any time with Willow," I protest. It's true and I feel bad about it. I neglect Willow - or maybe it's vice versa. Anyhow, she has her college life, and I have my exciting ice cream job and sex with Anya. Oh, and don't forget letting the undead steal books from me. That's another favourite hobby of mine.  
  
"Well, good. If she tries anything with you, rebuff her, and remember she's a lesbian," Anya chides me, picking up her bag and sailing out of the door.  
  
Sometimes I wonder why I love her.  
  
-  
  
A while later, I wake up, without my even knowing I'd fallen asleep. I didn't have any dreams as such, but the funny smell of asphalt is hanging around again, and when I hear a sound behind me, I turn, expecting Buffy to be there. She's not. I kneel down beside the bed and pull the box of books out from underneath. I open the first page of every one, looking for the only words I can remember. "Ablai deraen daemonai." But they're not there. They're not in any of them.  
  
What did Dream Buffy say? "Spike will win. Life is short. Sometimes Willow is wrong... the weight of the world." Weird how I can forget important things like birthdays and the day my pay cheque comes through (actually, I never forget that) but a stupid dream is imprinted on my mind like that time Tor Hauer stamped "Stupid" on the back of my hand in ink and it wouldn't come off for a month.  
  
(But the dream is what's important.)  
  
"I know," I say aloud, grouchily, but nobody's there and it doesn't matter. "Which book is it, Buff? How am I supposed to know?"  
  
There's no answer, and I wasn't expecting one. I flip the book open in my lap again. The last book, and I just looked at it, and I know it didn't say 'ablai deraen daemonai' or even anything like that --  
  
But now it does.  
  
"Ablai deraen daemonai ci tuest mepta li..." I begin. "Is this the one?"  
  
I blink and when my eyes snap open again, Buffy, Willow, Cordelia and Faith are standing in front of me.  
  
"That's the one," they whisper.  
  
Then I blink again and they've gone. Again. Again. But they've gone, and I don't know if they're coming back.  
  
"You're going crazy, Harris," I tell myself, but I know that I did see Buffy. That she really was there, and that it wasn't just some cheese-dream or something my mind conjured up to tell me that chips are a no-no before bedtime. For a while, Buffy was alive, and I think she still might be, somewhere.  
  
"Ablai deraen daemonai ci tuest mepta liniequa se guanto le firoum. Pralayest sen ojoub qua..." I continue reading to the end of the page. Then I turn over, and there is no more. That's it. The whole book is blank except that first page.  
  
"Ablai?" I start again hesitantly, thinking something should happen. Well, dammit, something should happen. I got visited by the dead, for Christ's sake - the dead, the alive, the LA bound and the incarcerated. I want smoke, I want fireworks, I want Pearl Harbour and Titanic and Men In Black all rolled into one.  
  
Something snaps then - it's like the world is a piece of paper, and someone folded it in half and then snapped it back into place. A transcendent force shoves me into a horizontal position, and two things flood through my head - one which I'm fairly sure came from me, and the other... I'm not so sure about.  
  
The first is "You ask for special effects, you get what's comin' to ya."  
  
The second is a woman's voice. One I don't know.  
  
"Time to begin."  
  
-  
  
"Time to begin."  
  
To begin what, exactly? The countdown to the day that Xander Harris completely loses his mind?  
  
(Actually, buddy, I think you missed that one.)  
  
I know it. That came the day I moved in with a demon. Or maybe when I started dreaming about playing chess with dead Slayers. Or maybe when I just started believing in all this Hellmouth stuff.  
  
(Maybe the day you started dating Cordelia Chase.)  
  
Oh, come on. She's a princess compared to some of the peaches I've -- wait. Xander, you're conversing with your brain. Stop that. Now, think this through carefully. Some girl is around somewhere talking about time --  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
I freeze. Actually that girl isn't around somewhere. She's right around here. Behind me. In my house. In my personal vicinity. How much do I like this? Not. At. All.  
  
"Fine," I squeak.  
  
"Are you going to turn around?"  
  
"It's tempting, but I have a really good view of the escape route from here." The escape route? Ohh, now she can smell the fear, amigo. You are a dead man. "I mean, the door. I can see the door." Smooth, Xander. I don't think you've been this slick since about third grade. Moron.  
  
The girl steps in front of me, and I'm surprised. I was expecting... well, I'm not sure. Something demure raised from the past, perhaps. Something in a corset, perhaps. At worst, I was expecting a really big cockroach with a woman's voice. A little strange, perhaps. But I have a history with bugs.  
  
Instead, there's a young Serena 'if she was a rock chick' Williams standing in front of me, looking extremely amused. "Why would you want an escape route? What are you escaping from?"  
  
"I... like to... err on the edge of safety," I say, wondering what on earth I'm talking about.  
  
"Oh... right." She looks around my basement with contempt really well disguised as admiration.  
  
"This is your folks place?"  
  
"Well..." Oh, marvellous. Mr Braggy-Braggy-Brag-Brag has come out to play. Super. I've turned into Spike. "The top half belongs to my parents. But the basement is my domain."  
  
Domain? Jesus.  
  
"Neat." She really does look impressed. "I mean, not what I was expecting for a warlock, but cool nonetheless. I was thinking eye of newt and black cats, but I guess modern is as modern does. What's your name?"  
  
"Xander." Eeech. False name. False name! "Ian."  
  
"Xanderian? Isn't that like a period in time?" She smirks and I'd like to say something equally cutting, but... I may as well admit in. Girls in Motorhead t-shirts scare the living daylights out of me.  
  
"Just Xander." Wait. Brain latching onto something. Modern. Warlock. Warlock.  
  
Warlock?  
  
"And I'm not a warlock," I continue. "I'm just a very silly boy who dabbles in the black arts because his dreams tell him to, okay?"  
  
"Total difference," she comments. "So how did you get me here? And what am I here for?"  
  
"You tell me. You're the one who said it was time to begin."  
  
"Time to begin? I never said..."  
  
The weirdest thing happens, then. (Well, not the weirdest thing today, by all accounts. But the weirdest thing for a couple of minutes.) The girl morphs into Buffy, who whispers, "Spike," and then morphs back into the girl, who is still ranting on about how she didn't say any such thing.  
  
"Spike," I interrupt her.  
  
She frowns. "No, I'm Grace. Who's Spike?"  
  
"Well, Grace, I'm Xander. Pleased ta meetcha. Now come on. We have to go and see Willow."  
  
I grab her by the wrist and drag her towards the door.  
  
"Willow? We talk to trees now?"  
  
"No, Willow. She's a person. I'll explain later. Now come on, or you're riding in the ice cream truck." 


End file.
